US GreenCardsA United States Permanent Resident Card, also known as a green card is an identification card attesting to the permanent resident status of an alien in the United States of America. Green card also refers to an immigration process of becoming a permanent resident. The green card serves as proof that its holder, a Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR), has been officially granted immigration benefits, which include permission to reside and take employment in the USA. The holder must maintain permanent resident status, and can be removed from the US if certain conditions of this status are not met.
The second is a temporary travel document, advance parole, which allows the alien to re-enter the United States. Both permits confer benefits that are independent of any existing status granted to the alien. For example, the alien might already have permission to work in the United States under an H1-B visa. Recent developments After a significant forward movement in the cutoff priority dates was announced on the June 2007 Visa Bulletin, the July 2007 Visa Bulletin witnessed another unprecedented jump — after years of backlog stagnation, all of the EB preference categories became current (except Other Workers). After the DOS issued a revised July Visa Bulletin on July 2 (which set all priority dates as unavailable) and later nullified it, the USCIS clarified via USCIS Update on July 17, 2007 that the USCIS will keep the applications filed and will re-open filings for a 31-day period from July 18 through August 17, 2007, in order to provide the same filing window to applicants who would have had been eligible to file if the July 2 actions had not taken place. Applicants will be able to pay I-485 form filing fees according to the July fee schedule during the entire window period. In May 2006, the United States Senate passed the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006", which would have substantially increased the available numbers of green cards and relieved many applicants, who are currently "stuck" and waiting for the ability to file the Adjustment of Status application, due to the backlog created by the Department of Labor (DOL) in the past, which was resolved by the introduction of the PERM process in early 2005. The House of Representatives, however, refused to pass any legislation pertaining to legal immigration issues before attempting to solve the problems of illegal immigration As part of immigration reform under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), as well as further reform enacted in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA), persons who are eligible and properly apply for permanent residence based on either a recent marriage to a U.S. citizen or as an investor are granted permanent residence on a conditional basis for two years. An exception to this rule is the case of a U.S. citizen legally sponsoring a spouse in which the marriage at the time of the adjustment of status (I-485) is more than two years old. In this case, the conditional status is waived and a 10-year Permanent Resident Card is issued upon USCIS approval of the case. A permanent resident under the conditional clause may receive an I-551 stamp as well as a Permanent Resident Card. The expiration date of the conditional period is two years from the approval date. The immigrant visa category is CR (conditional resident). 
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